New Key Security System for Large School District

Intro

One of the oldest and largest school districts tackled rekeying 28 school locations in one summer.

Problem

The district has over 100 school, administrative and support buildings which serve approximately 96,000 students in their system. They recognized their key systems were outdated, which could represent a security threat. The longer a key system is in use, the greater the chances are of losing control of the system.

The district planned a phased approach to rekey all schools. Phase one included 28 different schools and called for core replacements in nearly 4,000 openings.

Solution

The school district was familiar with DH Pace’s Key Services division. They had provided service in maintaining the school’s existing key systems. To be the least disruptive to normal school activities, DH Pace recommended to complete the work for the first phase over the summer months. This allowed for the school system to plan the repairs in a cost-efficient manner. If they had scheduled the work to be completed during the school year, they would have incurred additional costs to work outside of normal hours or on weekends.

Over the course of two months, the DH Pace team produced the pinned core, cut corresponding keys and then dispatched technicians to remove the existing cylinders and install the new system. During this time, approximately 4,000 openings were updated among the schools in phase one.

DH Pace turned over the used cores back to the school district. In the spirit of sustainability, the district keeps them on hand and reuses them in certain situations, like needing a door rekeyed in an emergency, turning a property over to another organization or installing in a new building they have purchased or taken over.

Conclusion

The school district’s first phase was completed on time and within budget. Completing the work across the thousands of openings in numerous school buildings went so well that the district is planning the second phase of the project with DH Pace to address the next set of buildings to rekey. The school district plans to continue working with DH Pace to rekey the rest of the district over the next few years.